Stupidity, Young Love and Sibling Rivalry
by Prosper-the-XVIII
Summary: Ruffnut and Tuffnut are a year older than the others starting Dragon Training. This is why. Slightly fluffy in places. Possible TuffnutxOC; it depends how you look at the relationship between Tuff and Termagant.


Ruffnut and Tuffnut Thorston had been fighting each other for as long as they could remember. But never, in his whole entire life, had Tuff done something worse than this. It had just been a simple armlock, nothing more; he had done the same thing six billion times before. But the fact that his older-by-21-minutes twin sister was on the floor and on the verge of tears was his fault. They fell out properly all the time; Tuff had been in the same position as his sister more than once, but neither twin had ever been seriously hurt by the other in all of their thirteen years together. Up until now. Tuffnut felt like crying himself, even though he was feeling no pain whatsoever, save for a burst lip. He was going to be in so much trouble. And his sister was hurt. Badly. Far worse than she had ever been before. By Tuffnut, anyway. And it was all his fault. It had been an accident.

He had never meant to break Ruffnut's arm.

But nothing could change the fact that he had. Her arm was bent at a right angle just below her elbow, and the bottom half of the break was jutted out, tiny white shards of bone poking through her flesh.

"Aw gods! Ruff, I-I'm so so so sorry!"

* * *

"What the hell was that noise?" Emerald Silvertongue, the twins' mum asked her husband, Loudmouth the Gouty. Loudmouth was looking up at the cracks in the ceiling and wondering how long until it completely caved in. It was just unfortunate that the twins' bedroom was directly above the family room.

"Probably just Ruff and Tuff. Did it sound serious?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact. It was like a bone breaking or something. Do you think we should go and check if they're killing each other?"

As they heard one twin, probably Tuffnut, as he had a far lower pain threshold than his sister, start crying, more in pain than anything else, Loudmouth said; "Now that I think about it, that might be a good idea."

* * *

"Get - off - of - m-me, butt-elf!" Ruffnut cried as Tuffnut gently laid a finger to her broken arm. "H-haven't you - done - e-e-enough!?" There were tears streaming from Ruffnut's beautiful green eyes and down her pale face. There was a few slightly bloody scratches down Ruffnut's face, and she flinched every time a salty tear droplet streamed down one of them. She was lying on her side, left hand clamped over the elbow of her shattered right arm.

"Oh gods, Ruff I am so so so so SO sorry. Does it hurt?"

"You just - broke - my - g-goddamn - arm! Of - course it h-h-h-hurts!" There was no forgiveness in Ruffnut. Never, in all their lives, had her idiot of a twin brother done something more malicious and horrible and awful. And the day before they were supposed to start dragon training. Ruffnut couldn't even move her fingers; there was no way she could lift her spear and fight tomorrow. She had no intention whatsoever of skipping training. She wasn't going to sit back and turn into the stupid girl that her mother wanted her to be while her brother became some awesome badass dragon-killer. No way. But she was going to have to. Now that she thought about it, she had actually always kind of wanted to break her arm. Okay, it wasn't exactly a big dream of hers, but she had just wanted to find out how it felt. But not badly. And not now. Plus, it hadn't occurred to her that it hurt like fury. Her best friend, Termagant, had broken her leg in four different places in a raid a few months ago, and had said that it didn't hurt; it was just sort of numb. But then again, Termagant was a pathological liar. On one occasion, she had said that it was medically impossible for a boy to fart, and thanks to Tuff doing the very same thing that was supposedly impossible during the night, Ruffnut knew that that wasn't true. Anyway, it was kind of ironic; poetic even what had happened, considering that she had kind of wanted it to happen, but not today and not in that kind of way. She had succumbed to her tears of both rage and utter agony, but crying didn't help. Both her thoughts and arm were a complete and utter mess, and there was only one thing she was certain of. She was never going to forgive Tuffnut. She swore it on her Hero's Honour. Never-ever-ever-ever-ever.

* * *

"It's a nice clean break, no implications, Ruffnut should be fine in about six or so weeks." Faye the Almighty, Astrid's mother and the woman who ran the Hospital Hut in the village said, as she finished poking around Ruff's injured elbow. It had been a little under two hours since Tuffnut had broken Ruff's arm. However, the pain hadn't gotten any easier. Clean break. Ruffnut winced at those two words, but that may have been Faye accidentally jabbing a finger into her arm. "Emma, I just need to set Ruffnut's arm for her. I think she might prefer it if you were all to step out of the room for a wee while."

Ruff closed her eyes tight, worrying that it was going to hurt badly. It did hurt when Faye gently but firmly straightened her arm out, but about an hour, some tight bandages, plaster and a sling later, and Ruff's arm was pretty much fixed. Now that it was back in the position it was supposed to be in, the burning pain in Ruff's arm had subsided into a persistent ache, and she could just move the tips of her fingers. But there was one thing that Ruff couldn't get over. Her arm was broken. She couldn't do dragon training.

* * *

"Ruffnut-" Tuff walked in on his sister.

"Go screw yourself." Ruffnut was in their room, moping. There was a raid going on outside, and she was missing out on all the action because of her stupid, stupid, STUPID brother. And she would never learn how to fight dragons because of him. She hated him with every inch of her being, with every drop of her bright red blood.

"Ruff, I am reeaaalllyyy sorry about what I did and if I could go back and break my own arm, I would. I'm just not sure if that's actually possible."

"Half-arsed apology NOT accepted. Now get lost, toenail head."

Tuff walked out of the room and out of the front door. He needed to be alone...

* * *

"Thor almighty, Tuff, where in the name of Hel's Underworld have you been?" Loudmouth boomed as Tuff walked in at around four in the morning. There had been a raid of epic proportions the previous night; Loudmouth had been knelt by Emerald's side, attempting to dig the Nadder's tail spine out of her shoulder. "Dragon training starts in two hours, you're not even in the least bit prepared! Get a shift on, laddie!"

"That's the thing, Dad. I don't wanna fight dragons. At least not without Ruff beside me! For Odin knows how long we've done absolutely everything at the same time; why should now be any different?"

"See, Tuffnut, honey, Ruff can't do dragon training 'cuz she's hurt. Now if you don't wanna do it, then tough luck, no joke intended. It's technically your fault that poor Ruffnut's been sitting bawling her eyes out because she can't do training, so think yourself lucky that you're getting to go at all." Emerald wiped a little of the blood off of her shoulder with a corner of her shirt, and looked her eldest son in the eyes.

"But I DON'T want to go; not until Ruff can come with me. If, in your head, not letting me train would be punishing me, then, by all means, go ahead!"

"Tuffnut, no means no. You are going to dragon training whether you like it or not!" Loudmouth said.

"You are making no sense whatsoever here!" Tuff yelled as he stormed upstairs.

Wait a minute, he thought, if Ruff can't train because she's hurt, what's to prevent me from having an 'accident' later?

**(That probably made no sense whatsoever, but it actually wasn't supposed to.)**

* * *

"WELCOME TO DRAGON TRAINING!" Gobber boomed happily. The six new trainees, Sharpknife, Dogsbreath, identical female twins, Typhoon and Tsunami, Termagant and Tuffnut entered the ring, all except Tuff getting stupidly excited. Tuffnut had a plan and, when Gobber released the dragon, it was time to put it into action.

The Gronckle flew straight at him, and he ran towards the shields, a feigned look of panic on his face. But the fireball the gigantic, snot-coloured dragon blasted at him just brushed his arm. Perfect. But there was one small problem. It hurt like Hel. He thought his skin was peeling off; he was probably right, and his whole arm felt like it was on fire. Stay strong, Tuff, he told himself. Be a man. You are a Viking. You are a VIKING!

"Oh my gods, Tuff!" Termagant cried, using her sheild to stop them both getting blown sky-high by the Gronckle's blast, then hurling her axe at it. You could really tell that this girl was Astrid's older sister. "What the Hel happened to your arm?"

Tuff grimaced, and put a hand to the back of his neck. "Nah, it's cool, I-"

"Tuff, you're BLEEDING for Thor's sake!"

Bleeding? Seriously? How in the name of Tyr's armpit hair is that even POSSIBLE?

"Aye, lad. That's a nasty one ye got there. I'd get that checked out and leave it 'till next year if I wis you." Gobber said. "Get yer butt to the Hospital Hut. Termagant, make sure he gets there."

Tuffnut couldn't help smiling a little as he walked out of the arena, tailed by the smoking hot teenage psychopath that was Termagant. Operation Ruffnut, for want of a better name,was going perfectly.

* * *

"You and your sister have really been in the wars recently, haven't you, Tuffnut?" Faye said as Tuff walked into the Hospital Hut, Termagant still behind him. "What've you done this time? Termagant, you can go." Faye waved her daughter off, and the slight, blonde twelve-year-old model of Astrid ran after her slightly older sister.

"Okay, long story short, I got blasted by a Gronckle and Gobber thinks I should hold off until next year. I was being a bit stupid, so I think that might be Gobber language for 'get lost and don't come back until you've grown up a bit.' Do you think it's that bad?"

"Depends. Take off your shirt."

Tuffnut obliged, and Faye pulled a face when she saw Tuff's shoulder. "Ick. This was definitely a Gronckle? Seriously, that shouldn't be that colour."

"I have a sort of allergy to reptiles. I think. This kind of thing has happened before and it was pretty bad." Tuff confessed quietly as Faye started rubbing some kind of weird chalky substance that stung like fury into the wound.

"Yep, that old fool, Gobber, was totally spot on. You're gonna want to give training a miss until next year."

And the Plan had worked.

* * *

"You're kidding me, right?" Ruffnut said as Tuff breezed in, his right arm in a sling, same as hers.

"Nope. Not kidding. So you were totally right, turns out I can't make it past the first day of dragon training. How's your arm?"

"It's been better," Ruffnut said, trying and failing once again to re-braid her hair. Turns out that it is pretty much impossible to tie fishtail plaits when you only have one functioning arm. "Still, I can move my fingers now, thats a pretty vast improvement. So, what happened to you?"

"Gronckle blast. There's something like six or seven inches of my arm that doesn't have any skin left on it. I'm actually surprised that you haven't put two and two together yet. I'm out of dragon training until next year."

Ruffnut squealed, jumped up and pulled her brother into a one-armed hug. "I love you so much, you dragon butt!" She muttered into his hair. Tuff wrapped his free arm around his sister, and they only let go of each other when Ruffnut's loose hair got up Tuff's nose and made him sneeze. They separated, and Ruff said; "Now, do you mind helping me with my braids? Turns out that I can't do it with only one hand."


End file.
